


Wings and Ruin

by starswholisten



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-09-01 03:28:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8605483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starswholisten/pseuds/starswholisten
Summary: No one could convince Cassian that life was worth living without his wings. No one but Nesta.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The ACOWAR title reveal destroyed me. I need to prepare myself for the worst, and in turn I will prepare all of you. I'm sorry.

The worst thing about the mountains was the wind.

It had never bothered her before… everything happened. Wind was just another type of weather, a feeling she would absently register in her mind as she pulled a scarf tighter around her neck.

Now, the wind caressed her newly heightened senses in a way her human body had never been able to feel. The wind sounded like it was whispering in her Fae ears, summoning her.

And the worst thing about it was that she didn’t hate it at all. She craved it. And her guilt was so immense that she stayed indoors as often as possible.

So Nesta sat at the dining room table of the House of Wind with her head in her hands, feeling that wind gusting through the open window, forcing away angry tears. There was so much on her mind, too much, but the one thing that mattered above all was far out of her control. The blackness behind her eyelids was easier to look at than the beautiful room surrounding her, the people in the city below that were whole and unbroken and free.

She envied them.

She wanted so badly to hate them, to hate everyone who didn’t understand. Everyone in the Inner Circle was fucked up, but sometimes she felt like only _he_ understood how out of place she felt, how she had become something she hated and feared and she could do nothing about it.

Another gentle breeze blew in from the window, kissing Nesta's skin and telling her everything would be okay. Lying to her. Nothing would be okay, not after today.

He had lost his wings.

The healers had tried for months to fix them, but when the infection set it, it had rotted away even more of the shreds of membrane that were left after Hybern. They said the infection would kill him if he didn’t have the surgery. He almost let it.

No one could convince Cassian that life was worth living without his wings. No one but Nesta.

She had been there from the first week, feeling a pull to him, a desperate need to lessen his pain in any way possible. And while she had remained a pain in his ass, telling him to keep going, to recognize how much he was worth, wings or no, she had given him a distraction. A reason to wake up in the morning. She’d reminded him how to fight.

In turn, he had brought the fight out of her as well. They’d had many a screaming match, a back and forth of accusatory words and spite, but it had been the only way Nesta could feel anything. And he had been the only one who understood what she felt like, living outside of herself, trapped in a body that was not hers and could never be hers, a hell beyond her nightmares. Nesta felt better, in a way, being around someone who didn’t try to make her feel grateful for the Fae body or her immortal life, who didn’t push her to grit her teeth and accept her situation. He knew there was more to life than just… being alive.

Nesta rubbed her hands down her face and set them down on the table, clasping them, wringing them together in her anxiety. What she had to tell him today would ruin everything they had built and everything she knew they could one day become. He would not - _should_ not - forgive her for the secret she was about to disclose.

But she knew he was the only one she could trust with this information. For now, at least. Everyone else would make her face it, would make her train it and hone it and force herself to become a weapon. She wasn’t sure that was what she wanted.

When she heard footsteps rounding the corner, Nesta let out a shaky breath, steadying herself. She kept her gaze as strong as steel as Cassian came into the light, taking up far less space physically and mentally than she could bear in her heart.

Her chest tightened as she took in the shreds of wings dragging behind him, the slump of his posture forward at the unfamiliar loss of weight on his back. He padded across the room to where she sat, a fallen warrior surrendering his battle.

Cassian’s eyes were empty, so distant and cold and broken that she wanted to scream, to curse all of the gods that allowed him to suffer. Hybern deserved this, the bitch Ianthe deserved this, and, hell, that prick Tamlin even deserved this. Not him. Not Cassian. Her skin heated with anger and something else as he stopped in front of her.

“You wanted to show me something?” He mumbled the question half-heartedly, a shell of the over-confident male she had once sparred with in a battle of wits. It seemed like a thousand years ago that she had been human, and he had been whole, and they had been nothing but a spark in a dark, hopeless future.

Nesta frowned and stood up, taking his hand in hers. The callouses of five hundred years as a warrior felt comforting on her smooth skin, steadying her quickly beating pulse as his fingers closed around hers. Without breaking eye contact, she tugged gently on his arm, urging him silently forward and leading him out to the balcony overlooking Velaris. It was one of many ways to show her trust in him, to show him that he still had worth, that she relied on him to guide her to the edge of the world.

He considered her with curiosity as she paused, hesitating when she felt the wind hit her face, hearing it call to her like a birdsong in the morning. She felt more than saw Cassian flinch, feeling the same call in his blood, an instict as old as he was, a need he would never again be able to relieve. Nesta rubbed a thumb over his hand. Comfort only went so far.

She watched his long hair blow in the breeze, following the trail of it along his jawline. He caught her watching and gave her a half smile, his greatest attempt at a smirk, at getting a rise out of her. Nesta was so relieved to see him smile that it didn't work.

It scared her how attached she'd grown to this male in just a few months, how she couldn't explain their connection, even when she knew deep down where it was rooted. It was more than that. It was something they had built together through a common experience of hardship, a surprising ease in the way they talked and touched and read each other's body language. Cassian could read her now, he always could, and she could read him. That made the smile that much more heartbreaking. He wouldn't be able to find it in a moment.

Breaking eye contact for the first time, Nesta turned away from him and toward the balcony, letting his hand fall from hers. She closed her eyes at the sunlight that blinded her, the brightness coming from the city of Velaris that she had not been adjusted to after looking into Cassian's eyes. The dullness where there was once laughter and life made her heart ache, and she sighed deeply.

"Nesta," he said, coming up behind her and placing a hand on the rail. In a normal world, in a world without cruelty, he would purposely allow his breath to caress her neck, a hand to find her waist, a smile to press against her ear. Those things felt far out of her reach, and she only realized now how much she had craved them. Needed them. How they grounded her in the reality of her surviving soul, that soul of fire and impulse and passion. How they reminded her that she was... still Nesta Archeron.

She brushed a hand over his, and he didn't move. He stilled, unsure, unaware of how much she felt in this moment that she wanted to disappear into another world with him so she wouldn't have to face this.

But he was still Cassian, as she was still Nesta. She needed to trust him.

"Something happened," she said, and immediately knew it was the wrong thing to say. His eyes snapped to hers, darkening, filling with worry, and she shook her head. "With my magic."

He considered her for a few moments, opening his ears, his heart. Helping her gave him a purpose, she could see it in those hazel eyes, the set of his jaw.

"Don't-" she started, closing her eyes and grasping his hand tightly, digging her nails in, making him _feel_. "Don't hate me."

"Not possible," she heard him whisper, and she opened her eyes. He was watching her, assessing, waiting for what she needed to show him. A trace of the Commander she knew flashed in his eyes.

"You say that now," Nesta said gently.

"Nothing you could do or show me would ever make me-" Cassian cringed, "-hate you."

There was a hurt now written on his face that was different from any he had shown since losing his wings. It was as if the very idea of Nesta thinking he could hate her injured him, in a way worse than any physical injury could. She frowned, searching his eyes and finding no doubt in them.

She released his hand then and stepped back, feeling the weight of her secret crash in on herself, steeling herself to be calm, to understand if he broke down and left her standing there alone.

He should.

“Well, maybe you won’t hate me,” she countered, consciously aware of her anxiety as it restricted her breathing. “But I’ll hate myself.” Nesta looked down at her feet. This was going to be harder than she thought, crueler than she could ever imagine herself being, worse than-

Her thoughts eddied from her head as Cassian stepped forward and put two fingers below her chin and lifted her head, forcing her to meet his gaze. He didn’t say anything - he couldn’t tell her not to hate herself when his own self loathing was so strong. But he could convince her with just a look, just a touch, that he would not leave her. That she was all he had, and if she wasn’t running away, neither would he.

Nesta took a deep breath and bit her lip, nodding gently, understanding everything he was silently communicating with her. He slowly lowered his hand from her face to take hers again, closing his fingers around hers, and Nesta closed her eyes at his touch.

Concentrating, she let her magic take over, relaxing and letting go of the glamour she’d been using to conceal her secret. She felt Cassian’s hand twitch slightly in surprise, and a chill washed through her as the wind blew again. Nesta wanted - needed - to answer its call, needed to escape and wipe her mind free of everything. But she stayed, opening her eyes as the wind subsided, and found Cassian watching her, his face unreadable.

It had been three days since Nesta had woken in the middle of the night to a strange heaviness in her back. Thinking it was a phantom pain the she was feeling as a result of Cassian, which she often felt, she had simply gone to the washroom to run the hot water over her back. What she had seen in the mirror when she entered elicited stunned silence, panic, and complete despair.

She had immediately tried using the same magic Feyre had taught her to glamour her ears, in those first weeks that just seeing them had caused her to set the curtains on fire. It had taken all night to master it, and most of her energy went into maintaining the glamour, making her even more tired and irritable these past few days.

Which was why she was telling him. She couldn’t keep the secret for much longer. And she needed him to hear it from her.

“You have wings,” he breathed.

Nesta took a shaky breath and nodded, expanding her great Illyrian wings behind her. A tear threatened to fall, and she looked up to blink it away, looked up because she didn’t know if she could watch as Cassian’s face fell in defeat and shame and disappointment.

They were silent for a moment, a long, agonizing moment, before he said, “Nesta, look at me."

A tear fell as she lowered her head, meeting his gaze. And the face she expected was notably absent, instead replaced with one of...

Awe.

Cassian’s mouth was slightly agape, his eyes wide, taking in the wings glowing with black and red and gold, as his had once been.

“Cauldron,” he whispered, watching her, taking in the glow of the membrane in the sunlight and gentle rustle of her wings in the breeze. He swallowed hard and blinked, meeting her gaze again. “When did this happen, Nesta?"

“Three days ago. I woke up with them,” she told him. “Cassian-“ Her words cut off with a sob that she hadn’t known was coming, and she forced herself to keep her composure, to hold in her emotions, as she formulated what she needed to say in her head.

“Cassian, I don’t- I don’t know what to do. This seems like a cruel joke,” Nesta choked out, tucking her wings tight as a particularly strong gust of wind blew over the balcony. Cassian’s eyes followed them as they folded behind her. “I don’t want these, not when you can’t- Cassian, I’m so sorry-"

He stepped forward slowly as her words broke off in another sob. His eyes moved to hers and he wiped her tears away with his thumb, as if on instinct. He couldn’t possibly want to touch her right now-

“Do not,” he said sternly, “apologize, Nesta.” His thumb stilled on her face. She tried not to lean into that touch, but it was like the wind. It called to her, she craved it. His touch was a part of her instincts now. “Do not apologize,” he repeated, more softly this time.

Nesta watched his eyes soften with his words, and she realized that the worst was over. She had shown him her secret, that she had wings when he no longer did. She’d laid all of her guilt and her self-hatred at his feet and he wasn’t going to leave, he wasn’t going to run away. Not only was he staying, touching her, looking at her… he looked more at peace than he had since Hybern.

“They’re beautiful,” he said, catching her off-guard as he rested his hands on her forearms.

She didn’t know why she did it, only that he was like a magnetic force drawn to her and she could hardly register what she was doing until she was already halfway there. But Nesta leaned forward and pressed her lips to his.

It wasn’t their first kiss, nor would it be their last, but this time it felt different. This time, it felt like acceptance, it felt like fearlessness. It felt like she and Cassian were one entity traveling in an endless circle with no end, unbreakable, impervious to the dangers and the obstacles thrown in their direction. It felt safe, where she usually felt so reckless and out of control when she allowed herself to break down her walls for him.

Cassian held her close as they broke apart, his heart beating rapidly against her as he lifted a hand behind her. He caressed the bottom of her wing, sending jolts of unfamiliar sensation through her body. Nesta shivered, but kept her eyes locked in his.

He smiled, a broader smile than she’d seen from him in weeks, and Nesta thought she might light on fire at the sight of it. “I’m going to be honest,” she breathed as he continued to caress her wing. “I didn’t expect this. At all."

“What did you expect?” Cassian asked, his voice sprinkled with the tiniest edge of hurt.

She sighed. “I thought you would resent me. That this would be the thing that broke you. More than you’re- more than you’re already broken,” she whispered, bringing a hand up to rest on his muscular shoulder. “I thought I would lose you."

He dropped his hand and Nesta almost whimpered at the loss of contact, until he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her closer. His expression turned serious and she shivered again. The weight of her world rested in this moment and she felt it crushing her. Her wings ached to take flight and carry her away from how Cassian must truly feel about her having wings, when clearly he was the one who deserved to be able to answer the call to the wind as he had for five hundred years.

But he only held her tighter and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear as he kissed her forehead. “You will never lose me, Nesta Archeron. You are my strength. You having wings just-“ he paused, a ghost of a smile gracing his handsome face as a gust of wind rustled her wings again. “It just shows even more how you complete me."

She searched his eyes and knew he was telling the truth. She knew that, no matter what, Cassian was unlike anyone else she’d ever let into her life. Nesta had the one thing that should make him break down, that should make him hate her and resent her and be completely unable to look at her. But he stood before her, accepting her, promising her that she would not be alone to handle this.

“We’ll get through it together, Nesta,” he added, seeing the turmoil in her blue-grey eyes. Knowing her as much as she knew herself. “Like we always do."

He would not hide from her, he would not leave her to fend for herself. And even though he'd lost his wings, he'd help her come to terms with hers.

As she glamoured her wings once more, nuzzling her head into his neck, he did not question her. He did not ask her to bring them back, or to fly, or to do anything more than stand there in his arms. He would not force her to deal with this right now, as she would not force him to. They nestled into the familiarity of each other’s touch and started with simply understanding.


End file.
